Review : Red Dirt by Anna Jarzab

Title : Red Dirt
Author : Anna Jarzab
Demographic : Young Adult
Genre : Contemporary, Mystery, Romance

When Sammy Lester's father goes missing, she's gotta do all she can to find out what happened to him.

Blurb from Goodreads :

The small town of Lake Bittersweet, Oklahoma, ain't no paradise, but Sammy Lester has lived there her whole life, and she'll most likely be buried there, too. Don't matter that she barely graduated high school, or that money's tight, or that her ex-con father's on the verge of losing custody of her six-year-old half sister Decca. Sammy can't leave Lake Bittersweet. She's got nowhere else to go.

When she meets charming city boy Brayton Foster, things start looking up for once. Then one dark night, her father, Bobby Ray, goes missing, and Sammy knows in her bones who's to blame. Local drug kingpin Redbreast Tuller and his family of criminals have unfinished business with Bobby Ray, and it seems they finally caught up with him. But the sheriff is in the Tullers' back pocket, and nobody in law enforcement cares about finding Sammy's dad.

When Sammy Lester just finished high school, she doesn't know what to do with her life besides staying in her hometown of Lake Bittersweet, Oklahoma. With the custody of her half sister, Decca, about to be lost, and the arrival a new boy coming to town, she's got a busy month ahead of her. When the sudden disappearance of her ex-con father comes ahead, Sammy has more on her plate than she's ever expected.

So, I had no expectations when going into this book. I didn't know much about it besides the blurb, but wow did it put things in perspective when were placed in Oklahoma and the slang was something I had to get use to. It wasn't too distracting after bypassing mainly 'ain'ts' and shorten words in dialogue and Sammy's monologue. I do have to stay that it is for a more mature audience as there are some sexy times involved. The mystery of the story wasn't difficult to follow along but even I could see that Sammy wasn't looking in all the directions to find out about her dad, and the person who did do, wasn't all that surprising.

Our main protagonist is Sammy Lester and she's one tough cookie. I usually don't mind that in a character but I think her stubbornness made her make some wrong mistakes that got her in to some serious trouble with the Tullers', the family of known criminals in the town. I did enjoy aspects where she looked to the positive side's of her father regardless if he wasn't the greatest dad. She certainly grows as a person as she is put in the difficult situation on finding her father and trying to keep her sister close to her.

Brayton has come to Bittersweet for the summer, and has caught Sammy's eye. They have an instant lustful interaction that eventually becomes more. He's not necessarily the playboy that he played off to be, but he's trying to find himself with Sammy after a rough start of his first year of college. There wasn't anything to dislike about him, and he tried his best to be with Sammy and give her space too. I wished he was more involved in the mystery, but he was mostly a distraction for Sammy, and I wanted more to his character besides his non stellar up-bringing.

Some side characters to mention are Denver, Sammy's older brother who has come back for the summer too. I love the family dynamic in the story because it displayed that while you're in a hard situation, family are people you should go to. He's a likable character that wants to get away from Bittersweet, and get more out of the world. Gypsum Tuller was a very mystery character, she popped into scenes and disappeared so quickly, we won't find out till later if she's on Sammy side or not. There were more side characters that were engaging but weren't that interesting to the plot of the story.

There is another character that is usually always brought up, and that would be Sammy's ex-boyfriend, Reed. Maybe that's one of the things I didn't enjoy about this book was because he was a big impact to her past and while she didn't just saddle up with Brayton, she still had an emotional connection to Reed which bothered me most of the story. If readers knew more details from the beginning I probably would have sympathized with Sammy more, but there were alot of unclear details till near the end.

Rating : 4 Stars

I didn't really get invested into this book as I wanted to, as I wasn't too shocked to the whole situation when we are given clues to keep readers intrigued. Sammy made some stupid decisions sometimes, when she could've obviously asked for help. She eventually did, but she was too stubborn to know how to ask, and although we're in her thoughts, there were some mysteries readers won't know till later. The plot itself wasn't that gripping for me, although I did like how everything ended nicely. What I liked most of all was probably the meaning of what people can do for family and how far you can go to take those risks.

Romance Rating : 4

So, I usually like an emotional attachment for the romance to begin before any sexy times happen. They kind of have it, and I while they do get seriously involved with each other later, it still peeved me when lust was got them together in the first place. There were some misunderstandings on Brayton's part, but I think it was a little dramatic on Sammy's side since he had his own problems to deal with too. They still had a happy ending, and I liked how they did want to comfort one another in tough situations.

Recommended : Yes.

I do think people should still give it a try since I hardly read books with this type of setting in contemporary novels, but there were some parts I didn't enjoy that others might not either. It still wasn't an overall bad book and if people can get over Sammy's stubborn streak sometimes and admire it at the same time, I'm sure readers will still like the journey of solving her father's disappearance.